OK, I just listened to that link.
Paraphrasing here, he said that he:
'heard rumors of it in September and dug around but couldn't quite nail it down'.
'when i woke up on Friday that story wasn't even on my radar screen'
'we were able to confirm it in a way that we were comfortable with'
My question is WHAT happened in those 24 hours that "confirmed" it for him that hadn't occurred in the previous 5 months?
If it was Specter raising issues, and Tomase (and more importantly the management of the Boston Herald) wanting to get in on the party - - then there was NO further confirmation of the "story" than what he and the Herald management had declined to put in their paper the previous 5 months running.
The whole issue boils down to one question:
If you and your editors felt the story was so flimsy for 5 months, what MATERIALLY changed to cause you to publish the story on the day before the Super Bowl?
All Tomase has said so far is that, 'well, Specter came out with his complaints on Thursday amd the NYT was digging around'.
- - sorry, that is not a journalistic reason why that PARTICULAR story suddenly gained confirmation within 24 hours.
At NO time in that radio interview does Tomase say that he received further confirmation in that 24 hour period - - he only references that Specter and the NYT were going public.